Things You Can Do When You're Bored

I wasn't exactly bored today, having my little Baby Girl back with me. Her grandma kept her for a few days this past week. Anyhow, we did a lot of errands today, including today's project:

Take Care of the Recyclable Materials

While Baby Girl took a nap, I put together all our recyclables so we could take them to a nearby transfer station. We live out in the country, and although we could pay for garbage & recyclable materials collection, we choose not to. Within a very short distance from our home is a transfer station where we can take all our waste & recyclables. The county assesses a tax for this service on our annual property tax, so why should we pay extra to have someone do it for us? It's not completely inconvenient to take care of it ourselves, and we really have no excuse not to since the transfer station is nearby.

But although we recycle nearly every imaginable item we can, we're often lax about sending them to the transfer station in a timely manner. It's just a chore that hubs and I don't care to do. Fortunately, the transfer station has changed its hours and days of operation, making it more convenient for us to take care of this responsibility. Before, they were only open 8am-6pm Mon-Sat. Which meant we weren't able to take anything there before going to work, and it would be closed by the time we got home after work. So we'd have to plan to get this task accomplished on Saturdays. Not always a convenient day since we could be out of town, running errands, or who knows what. And the garbage & recyclables would pile up in our garbage & storage bins.

But with the new hours, we really have no excuse. They are now open Mon-Tue and Thur-Sat 7am-7pm. I can now take a bag of garbage or a couple bags of recyclable materials to the transfer station on my way to work, or, I can take a load as soon as I get home from work. The same is true for my husband; we do try to share the responsibilities for this chore, after all. And if we just can't get a load to the transfer station before or after work during the week, then we still have Saturday to take everything there.

We've also gotten the kids involved, and they are always excited to help us take care of the recyclables. We have two storage bins in the kitchen that we put our recyclables into. One bin is for paper products; the other bin is for plastic, glass, etc. The kids help sort each item and pile everything into our car or truck.

At the transfer station, the kids work on disposing the cans into the can bin. They like throwing one can at a time, so they're usually done by the time I've finished putting the plastics, glass, and paper products in their own containers. Today, it was just me and Baby Girl. As usual, she wanted the cans and threw them one at a time into the appropriate storage bin.

Ready, aim, fire!!

She's gotten really good at throwing the cans into the recycle bin!

I really like involving the kids in this simple chore. They're learning about responsibility for our planet and environment, as well as taking ownership for the materials we use and properly disposing of them. An easy way to get your own kids involved is to make it fun, like letting them throw the cans into the storage bin. That's what works for us, and it may work for your family, too. When our son and daughter do it together, they take turns throwing cans to see who can throw the farthest. It's a task that they really enjoy, and I'm happy because they are happy.